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Barrett Brasfield just turned one, but he has been fighting since the day he was born.
Born June 6, 2024, at just 26 weeks after an emergency Cesarean section, he weighed only one pound at birth. But now, 13 months later, Barrett is going home to his family. He has spent the entirety of his life at hospitals in Birmingham, Alabama.
“It’ll be an amazing moment to take him home and cross the threshold of our home with him for the first time. We’ve had a nursery set up for months,” his dad, Roman, told local news outlet WBRC.
His mother, Carli, said her son is "so full of joy" and is playing, laughing, rolling, sitting up, and eating. By his first birthday, he weighed in at 18 pounds: not bad for someone who is fed by a tube!
"You would never believe he has been in the hospital for 400+ days because he is just so full of life,” she said.
In addition to his early birth, Barrett has faced many obstacles during his short life.
He battled lung issues and lung infections, and spent the first eight months of his life at the Regional Newborn Intensive Care Unit at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, before being transferred to the NICU at Children's of Alabama.
In April, Barrett was fitted with a tracheotomy tube. This meant that finally coming home from the hospital was a real possibility, after months of setbacks.
His parents also recently heard him cry for the first time.
“Recently, he got to use a device called a Passy Muir Valve. And most parents don’t want to hear their baby cry, but this device allows us to hear him and the air to pass over his vocal cords," said Roman. "So to hear him cry for the first time was a huge day for us."
Congratulations to the Brasfield family for this huge accomplishment, and welcome home, Barrett!
